Page 7 of Twisted Trust (Mafia Lords of Sin #10)

LEVI

A ntony Marino has the most punchable face I’ve ever seen in my life.

The bastard calls a meeting, demands my presence, and then shows up via video call rather than in person.

It’s like he’s trying to make some sort of statement about how he can snap his fingers and I have no choice but to save face.

The conversation with my father swirls around my mind as Antony brags in code about how much product we’ve managed to move through the local Casinos.

In business terms, it’s been amazing.

Cooking such large quantities was a challenge I was able to overcome by entirely reworking our distribution network to ensure quality product hit the street less than twelve hours after it was cooked.

Such a premise was a challenge but after opening up countless more cookhouses and bringing the Las Vegas production on site, supplying the casinos has never been easier.

And with The Wolves running protection and ensuring that every patron is offered a sample, we’re drawing in more money than we ever have in the entirety of my father’s reign as Don.

And fucking Antony Marino takes credit for it.

I never should have agreed to let him come down to Vegas and oversee production.

Back then, I was caught up with The Wolves and working my debt back to Nazario.

Antony was nothing more than my greasy cousin with more balls than sense.

I didn’t see him as a threat.

My mistake, it seems.

In a blink, Antony gained such a foothold in Vegas that barely anything moves without his say so.

It’s his contacts in the Las Vegas Police Department who keep them off our backs, and it’s his men who distribute throughout the casinos, and his men who run the games.

In just two years, he went from a goon meant to oversee simple cookhouses to somehow on top.

And with that comes the offer he’s hungered for.

Don is within his grasp.

Unless I do something about it.

Killing him is an option and as his snarky, proud grin drifts back and forth on the screen, I contemplate how I’d get away with it.

Cutting him down wouldn’t earn the loyalty of everyone under him and even the strength of the XXX Syndicate couldn’t weather a mass exodus of his loyal men.

The only way to kick him down and earn that loyalty is to take my rightful place as Don.

But how?

By the time the meeting is over, my chest is tight from anger and each breath is painful.

Donald scurries after me as I stride down the corridor toward the elevator and hands me a bottle of water.

“Do you want me to bring the car around?”

“I don’t know, Donald. What the fuck do you think?”

Donald stops dead. “You don’t pay me enough to deal with your shitty moods. Do you need a cigarette or something?”

I stop a few feet away from him and turn. “No. And I don’t pay you at all.”

“Exactly.” Donald snorts. “Your dad does. So you wanna check your attitude?”

A flash of overwhelming anger bursts through me but as quickly as it rises, it fades.

He’s right. Donald, of all people, doesn’t deserve to take the lashes of my fury.

He’s just my driver.

“Sorry. Get the car, sure. I’m gonna head down to the gym.”

“You need company?”

“No. I need to think.”

Donald nods and slips away toward the stairwell, leaving me in front of the elevator.

I map out the ornate golden patterns that rise up the doors to create the illusion of a golden arch while my mind spins in circles.

Demanding to take credit will make me seem childish.

Perhaps I can highlight my friendship with Nazario and emphasize the peace we now share, thanks to my hard work, as it benefits the whole family.

Stamping out the Red Serpents would also catch people’s attention.

Or I find a wife and pop out an heir before Antony can do the same.

Suddenly, Maeve’s child pops into my head with his vibrant eyes and thick, dark hair.

The mirror version of my younger self.

But that’s impossible.

Don’t all kids look the same when they’re young?

It has to be a coincidence.

I pace away from the elevator to work off some of the nervous energy singing through my limbs when the elevator doors slide open and Chip walks out.

He stops when he catches sight of me and his eyes widen, but everything else melts away to nothing when Maeve steps out from behind him, frowning at Chip for having stopped dead in her path.

Without the swelling and dirt from the parking lot, or the sickening glare of the hospital lights, she looks as beautiful as the last time I saw her.

Wide blue eyes, an oval face with full red lips, plump hips, and so much thick brown hair that frames her face in waves.

Most of it is scooped away from her face and held in place by pins.

Physical attraction to Maeve was never an issue.

When I was with her, I could never stop thinking about her or the things I wanted to do to her.

After she betrayed me, that didn’t exactly change.

“Levi,” Chip says quickly, and there’s alarm in his tone. “It’s not what?—”

I’m moving before I’ve even processed the thought.

My hand collides with Maeve’s shoulder and I shove her back into the elevator, following just in time for the doors to close behind me.

Her cry of indignation barely reaches me as my heart pounds so loudly in my ears that I’m deaf to everything other than the screech of the elevator brakes when I hit the emergency stop.

“Let me out,” Maeve demands immediately.

She surges toward the floor panel but I’m quicker.

My arm loops around her waist and I shove her back against the back wall, caging her in with one arm above her head.

“Levi, let me out! There are cameras in here, you know. Everything you do will be recorded!”

Her voice is high-pitched and strained and she genuinely seems to think such a threat will sway me.

Cameras mean nothing, video proof means nothing.

A click of my fingers and the footage will never have existed.

“The fuck are you doing here?” I snap, bringing my face within an inch of hers. “Seeing you once after all these years is something I’d accept as a fucking coincidence, but twice?”

“I fucking work here,” she snarls, slamming both her hands into my chest and shoving at me, but it does nothing to dislodge me from blocking her in against the wall.

“Fuck off.” She’s right.

When her arm falls, I glimpse the name badge pinned to her blouse just above the rise of her bosom. Maeve, Head Event Coordinator . “Fucking hell, you actually found something to commit to for longer than a summer.”

“Fuck you,” she spits.

Her anger burns as hot as mine and the heat inside the elevator rises, but she’s scared.

I can see it in the way her lower lip trembles, how her eyes constantly dart between me and the elevator control panel, how sweat beads her temple and each breath she drags in is short and sharp.

“I already did, remember?” My eyes narrow. “You’ve got some nerve showing up here.”

“At my place of work?” Despite her anger, her voice wobbles slightly. “God forbid a girl earns a paycheck.”

“Is that all you’re doing?”

When I knew her, she was never the honest paycheck kind of woman.

She was frantic and exciting, preferring to travel and party more than anything else.

The perfect kind of free person to work on a party yacht.

Event coordinator sounds too stuffy for a woman like her. “You running some kind of scam, is that it? Trying to pull one over on all the poor sods that cross your path?”

“Fuck you,” Maeve snarls again, then her knee suddenly collides hard with my crotch.

Pain explodes through my balls and up through my lower gut.

As my knees weaken, I’m forced to stumble backward and Maeve once again lunges for the elevator panel.

I stumble, gasping as the sharp blow to my balls sends a blast of tension right up to my chest and I almost can’t breathe.

Just as her fingers make contact with the control panel, I spin and grab her by the arm.

Her hair flies free from its pins as I drag her back against the wall.

She throws a weak elbow that I duck, then I shove her hard and as she collides with the wall, I pin her back in place with my hand around her already bruised throat.

She gasps raggedly and both her hands clutch at my wrist while I apply just enough pressure to force her wild eyes onto me.

“I don’t give a shit about cameras and the only reason I haven’t killed you yet is because I don’t want to deal with the hassle of cleaning up your fucking body, understand me?”

Her nails become claws, digging into my wrist like a kitten scrabbling for purchase.

Her pulse races frantically underneath my palm and she raises her chin as if she’s trying to narrow her throat to free it from my grip.

“That’s just like you,” she croaks. “Too cowardly to do your own dirty work.”

In any other scenario, I’d be amused, but I’m too angry.

To go from Antony and his fucking weaselly face to Maeve, the root cause of my current predicament, is almost too much to bear.

Why is she here?

Why is the universe doing this to me now?

“Oh, don’t worry, darlin’. I’m going to kill you.

I’ve spent the past five years dreaming up all the ways I’m going to make a pretty little thing like you hurt until you’re begging for death.

For all the shit you put me through, all the pain you caused?

I’m the only one getting my hands dirty with you. ”

“Me?” Her nails shred my wrist but the pain isn’t enough for me to release her.

“You’re one to talk. Don’t you dare try and pin your failings on me.

I know what kind of man you are. You kill to get your own way, to get rid of anything you don’t have time for.

Normal people just send a fucking breakup text. ”

“I’m not normal.” Leaning in close, I’m hit by the overwhelmingly familiar scent of jasmine. “You know nothing about me is normal .”

“You’re insane,” she croaks. “But what can I expect from a liar? Go on, then. Do it. Why the fuck are we dragging this out? You’ve wanted me for five years, so why wait?”

Why wait?

I could do it now.

My gun is on my belt.

I could kill her right now and the catalyst for the shit show of my life would finally be dead.

No.

That’s too easy.

And part of me… can’t.

Her son’s face bursts into my thoughts, and it’s all I can see as I stare her down.

I breathe deeper, soaking in her achingly comforting scent.

For months, it was the only smell I ever wanted to smell.

I breathed her in constantly and worshiped her body just to cover myself in her scent.

Back then, Maeve was like a drug to me in every sense of the word.

Her beauty, her scent, her witty attitude, the apparent kindness in her heart, all of it a carefully constructed plan to destroy me.

“Tell me why,” I demand, sliding my hand up until her jaw sits in the crook between my thumb and forefinger. “Tell me why you did it and I’ll kill you quickly.”

“Why I did what?” Her anger-filled eyes dart back and forth between mine. “Tried to survive?”

“Is that really what you want to call it? Survival?”

“Of course it was fucking survival,” she snaps. “Did you want me to wait around for your family to come and kill me like some fucking maniac just because you were gone? Although I suppose it’s hard to keep track when you’re pretending to be dead!”

Wait… what? What the fuck is she talking about?

The question rises in my throat but before I can speak, the elevator jolts to life and drops for a few seconds.

When it comes to rest, the doors behind me creak open and I quickly release Maeve, unsure what to expect.

Several worried-looking maintenance engineers stand at the elevator's entrance.

One rushes toward me.

“Sir, I’m so sorry for the fault of the elevator. This is highly unusual, and rest assured, we will conduct a thorough inspection. I will make sure compensation is applied to your card…”

His words fade as Maeve rushes past me and makes her escape down the corridor.

By the time I make it past the maintenance workers, she’s already gone but her face lingers in my mind.

The bruises and lacerations stand out like beacons while her final words repeat in my thoughts.

She didn’t speak as someone who had spent months planning to screw me over.

And accusing me of pretending to be dead? What the hell was that all about?

It has to be another one of her tricks.

Next time I corner her, we won’t be interrupted.